How Fruit Machines Work

If you have often wondered how fruit machines work and operate then we have put together the following "follow the coin" guide. Which will show you what happens from the second you insert a coin in a fruit machine slot, right up to the part where the owner of the machine empties it.

A fruit machine has a coin mechanism and usually a note validator, the former is an electronic device which validates any coins inserted into the fruit machine are real and true coins and the latter makes sure that if you have inserted a banknote that it is a real note and not a forgery.

One either the coin or note has been validated then an electronic signal is sent to the MPU (Micro Processing Unit) which in turn registers the correct number of credits onto the credit display.

If a banknote has been inserted then this, once accepted, works its way into the note box on the fruit machine (this is a secure locked box containing all notes that have been inserted), if you inserted a coin then if it is a £1 it could either end up in the fruit machines coins hopper (a bucket like device which stores coins and also pays them out), or into the cash box at the bottom of the machine.

The cash box is where all surplus coins end up, if the hopper is full of coins then all get sent to the cash box, if a coin isn't a £1 coin then these are immediately sent to the cash box.

How Fruit Machines Work - The Game

Once you have got credits on a fruit machine you are then able to play it, once you press the start button the MPU instructs the reels to spin, it tells them what to spin in, this could be a winning spin, a losing spin or a bonus feature could be awarded.

Once again the play buttons on the fruit machine control the game play, which are all relayed back to the MPU. This is the brains of the fruit machine and it will have been preset to payback a minimum payout percentage.

The payout percentage is what the machine is obliged to aim for, it will do this over a large game cycle which can be many tens or even hundreds of thousands of spins.

If you win and money is available to collect then once you press the collect button the MPU sends a signal to the coin hopper, this sill then spin around and fire out the number of coins relating to your win bank.

At the base of a fruit machine is the cash box, this is behind a couple of lockable doors to which the owner or operator has the keys. Also behind these doors are a set of meters, either electronic meters or digital meters.

These meters record every coin in, every note in, every coin paid out and sometimes the bank note denominations. This is how the fruit machine operator can work out how much the machine should have in it to ensure no skulduggery or theft from that fruit machine has occurred.